Doctor Who - Revolution of the Daleks, on BBC One (UK) / BBC America (USA)
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Caution: spoilers.

This is the fifteenth Festive special of the revived Doctor Who series, and the second New Year's special (rather than Christmas). It first aired on January 1, 2021, but I didn't see it until January 1, 2022. It takes place between series 12 and 13.

This special picks up at the end of the previous special, "Resolution", in January 2019. After the Dalek was destroyed by the Doctor and her companions, the government was transporting its shell to a secret facility, but the truck was intercepted by someone working for an American businessman named Jack Robertson, and the driver was apparently killed. (Robertson had previously appeared in a season 11 episode, but I didn't remember him.) He purchased a British company called Rugazzi Technologies, and its CEO, Leo Rugazzi, now works for him. Leo worked to create a new line of defense drones controlled by A.I., based on materials from the destroyed Dalek (though he had no idea what it was or where Robertson had gotten it). Ryan, Graham, and Yaz saw leaked footage of the prototype drone being demonstrated to British politician Jo Patterson, currently the Technology Secretary of the UK, who becomes Prime Minister later in the special. They recognize the drone as a Dalek, and set out to stop Robertson's plan, but it turns out to be difficult, without the Doctor.

Most of the episode is set ten months after the end of series 12, when the Doctor had, unbeknownst to her companions, been captured by the Judoon and sent to "space prison". She spent an unknown number of decades there, before Captain Jack Harkness got himself arrested as part of a plan to break her out. (I have no idea how he knew she was there, but that's a minor quibble.) Apparently his plan had taken him 19 years, but the escape itself is pretty quick, and he transports her and himself back to her TARDIS. (It makes me wonder how long it will be before the Judoon come looking for her again, but it doesn't happen in this special, anyway.) Then they go back to Earth to see her companions, expecting it to be right after she'd left them there, but instead, as I said, it was ten months later. The Doctor is apologetic for leaving them alone for so much time, but it seems strange to me that neither she nor Jack ever mention how long it had been for her. Anyway, she and Jack immediately get to work helping the companions stop Robertson and Patterson's plan to use the "Defence Drones" as a sort of police force to ensure the public's security. (Though mainly that seems to mean stopping protests, which makes it seem horribly authoritarian.)

Meanwhile, Leo had found traces of biological matter in the original Dalek's shell, which he cloned to grow a new Dalek, not knowing what it was. When he shows Robertson, the latter orders him to incinerate it, but before he can, the Dalek takes over Leo's body. But it turns out that even before that, the Dalek had secretly been using the company's resources to order construction of a cloning facility in Osaka, where more Daleks were being created to take over the Defence Drones as their new shells. Well, I don't want to get into all that goes on with the heroes trying to stop the Daleks, but it requires a serious risk that creates a new problem to be solved. It also results in the destruction of the Master's TARDIS, which had been disguised as a house which the companions had been using for the last ten months. (Mostly Yaz, who had been trying to figure out a way to find the Doctor, while Ryan and Graham went on with their normal lives as best as they could.)

Anyway, I really enjoyed the whole story, including a lot of good character beats, a lot of emotion, and a bit of humor. (There was one joke I didn't even get until after I'd watched the whole special, because I'm slow. But I liked it when I got it.) And... there's a major, dramatic change at the end of the special which I won't spoil until I start writing about series 13. Oh, but I did want to mention how weird it seems to me that no one in the UK recognizes Daleks. How many times have they invaded the Earth in a very public manner, now? It's especially pointed in Robertson's insistence that he doesn't even know the word "Dalek".